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Tracing the Dispersion
Title | Tracing the Dispersion |
Publication Type | Magazine Article |
Year of Publication | 1994 |
Authors | Blodgett, Terry M. |
Magazine | Ensign |
Volume | 24 |
Issue Number | 2 |
Pagination | 64-70 |
Date Published | February 1994 |
Keywords | Gathering of Israel; Language - Hebrew; Linguistics; Scattering of Israel |
Abstract | New linguistic studies help tell us about the scattering of Israel. |
URL | https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1994/02/tracing-the-dispersion?lang=eng |
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Tracing the Dispersion
By Terry M. Blodgett
New linguistic studies help tell us about the scattering of Israel.
What befell the tribes of Israel's northern kingdom many centuries ago? That question has been asked by students of the scriptures for generations. Like any important historical topic, it is one that deserves careful and thoughtful study.
Reconstructing ancient history, even religious history, can be compared to putting together a large, complex puzzle with many of the pieces missing. One must locate and assemble as many pieces as possible, then form as accurate a picture of the past as the facts allow. In tracing Israel's dispersion, therefore, many pieces may be considered: artifacts, vestiges of ancient customs, archaeology, cultural anthropology, and scriptural and historical accounts. This article explores only one such piece—that of linguistic evidence.1
Every Language Evolves
Language is a dynamic cultural phenomenon. It changes and grows. In our day, modern technology, the sciences, and the media have accelerated the acquisition of new words but, at the same time, have standardized spelling and pronunciation. In the past, languages acquired new words more slowly, but they were more likely to experience spelling and pronunciation changes. Some of these changes took only decades; others took centuries.
One of the major sources of language change occurs when two groups of people, each speaking a different language, come in contact with one another. Each language influences the other, becoming a catalyst for change and eventually settling into patterns characteristic of the languages prompting the changes. These patterns serve as clues to help a linguist determine what the language was like before the changes took place and which languages caused the changes.
The basic conclusion of linguistic study into this subject is that as large groups of ancient Israelites left their homeland—first, following the Assyrian captivity of northern Israel (about 700 B.C.) and the Babylonian captivity of Judah in the south (about 600 B.C.), and second, following the Roman conquest of Palestine (about A.D. 70)—their language influenced the languages of some of the countries to which they migrated. This linguistic evidence can help us determine where some of these Israelites went and approximately when. Although ancient Israelites were eventually scattered throughout the entire world (see Amos 9:9), at least one general geographical area contains significant linguistic evidence to suggest that Israelite migrations did in fact occur there. That area is Europe.
Linguistic Evidence in Europe
From the Old Testament and other historical sources such as the annals of the Assyrian kings, we learn that the northern kingdom, after years of war and deportation, fell to Assyrian invaders in 721 B.C. Jeremiah emphasized the north countries as being these Israelites' eventual destination (see Jer. 3:12–18; Jer. 16:14–16; Jer. 23:7–8) and implied a western route (see Jer. 18:17; Hosea 12:1). Thus, a natural place to look for what befell those remnants is to study the countries north and west of the Middle East.
It is of interest, therefore, to learn that in Europe, the centuries following 700 B.C. were marked by tremendous outside influence, and language was profoundly affected. During the period between 700 and 400 B.C., numerous languages in Europe underwent major pronunciation changes and absorbed new vocabulary.2 This was particularly true of the Celtic languages, which were originally spoken throughout Europe (700–300 B.C.) but gradually became more concentrated in western Europe and Britain, and of the Germanic languages, which were spoken in central and northern Europe and Scandinavia and eventually in England. The gradual evolving of the sounds that make up words in a language, particularly when two languages merge, is known by linguists as a sound shift. The well-known pronunciation changes of the period of time between 700 and 400 B.C. have been called the Germanic Sound Shift, because they were the most pronounced and systematic in the Germanic languages, which include English, Dutch, German, Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, and Icelandic.3 Also during this same time period, the total vocabulary in the Germanic languages increased by as much as one-third.4
Linguists have long pondered what caused this sound shift and the increase in vocabulary.5 One theory is that the technologically advanced peoples who introduced iron to Europe (seventh century B.C. in Austria; sixth century B.C. in Sweden) also influenced the language changes. Linguistic research supports this idea, as well as the idea that these advanced peoples came from the Middle East, where iron was in use. The research shows that the changes in language resulted from an influx of Hebrew-speaking people into Europe, particularly into the Germanic- and Celtic-speaking areas.
The Germanic Sound Shift
Most of the languages of Europe belong to the Indo-European family of languages; that is, they are part of the linguistically linked group of languages spoken in Europe and spreading as far east as Iran and India. For many years, the peculiarities in the Germanic languages kept linguists from recognizing that the Germanic languages belonged to the Indo-European group. However, early in the nineteenth century, two linguists—Rasmus Rask from Denmark (1818) and Jakob Grimm from Germany (1819–22)—showed that the Germanic languages were indeed part of the Indo-European family but that their differences in pronunciation were caused by a systematic shift in the sound of two groups of consonants—[p, t, k] and [b, d, g].6
At the time of the sound shift, the pronunciation of these six consonants was changed to [ph, th, kh] and [bh, dh, gh], respectively. These new sounds were usually represented in writing by the letters f, th, h (x or ch) and b (v), d (th), g (gh). For example, by applying the rules of the sound shift to the Indo-European te puk—replacing the t, p, and k with th, f, and x—we recognize the English words the fox. Now the relationship between the Indo-European word pater and the English word father becomes more recognizable.
Linguists generally agree that these changes began taking place sometime after 700 B.C., and that the influence causing the sound shift continued to affect the Germanic dialects for several centuries, at least until 400 B.C. and possibly as late as the Christian Era.7
Unfortunately, scholars have not been able to agree upon what caused these changes or where the original homeland of the peoples may have been. Scholars have traced them to the Black Sea area, and to the Caucasus Mountains, but research did not trace them beyond there, because the scholars did not know whether that had been the people's first homeland or they had come from the east or south of that point. My research took me to the Middle East, and it was there that I found a likely cause for the sound shift—the Hebrew language.
The first thing I noticed was that Hebrew shifted the same six consonants that were shifted in Germanic—[p, t, k] and [b, d, g]. In ancient Hebrew, these consonants carried a dual pronunciation. Often, they did not shift, but when they began a syllable that was preceded by a long vowel, or ended a syllable, then [p, t, k] and [b, d, g] shifted to the sounds [ph, th, kh] and [bh, dh, gh]. Thus, the Hebrew word for "Spain," separad, was pronounced sepharadh, and the word for "sign," spelled 'ot, was pronounced 'oth.
In 700 B.C., this sound shift was still functional in Hebrew and would have been part of any impact that migrating Israelites would have had on other languages. The fact that the same consonants were involved in similar sound shifts in both Hebrew and Germanic dialects at about the same time is significant. Yet even more significant is that the sounds [ph, th, kh] and [bh, dh, gh], so prevalent in Hebrew, did not exist in Germanic before the sound shift occurred.8
A Comparison of Hebrew and Germanic
The case for a Hebrew influence on Germanic is further strengthened by a close comparison of the two languages, and particularly of the changes that developed in Germanic following the Assyrian captivity of Israel. The changes fall generally into three categories: pronunciation, grammar, and vocabulary.
1. Pronunciation. In addition to the similar sound shifts just described, there were other sounds common to both Hebrew and Germanic that did not generally appear in the Indo-European languages. For example, when Hebrew and Germanic consonants appeared between vowels, they normally doubled if the preceding vowel was short. This doubling of consonants, referred to as gemination, became a characteristic feature of Germanic but not of other Indo-European languages. In this way, Indo-European media became Old English middel and modern English middle.
Almost half of the Hebrew verb conjugations required doubling the consonant and substituting a shortened vowel preceding the consonant. Compare Hebrew shabar ("to break") and the related Hebrew form shibber ("to shatter"). Likewise, almost half of the Germanic verbs doubled the middle consonant and substituted a shortened preceding vowel: Indo-European sad- and bad- became settan ("set") and biddan ("bid") in Old English.9
2. Grammar. At the time of the Germanic Sound Shift, the Germanic dialects experienced a sharp reduction in their number of grammatical cases, making Germanic more like Hebrew. As in English, the case (or form) of a noun, pronoun, or adjective in a Germanic language indicated its grammatical relation to other words in a sentence. At the time of the Germanic Sound Shift, the Germanic dialects immediately reduced the number of possible cases for a word from eight to four (as in modern German) and eventually to three (as in English, Spanish, and French). These were the same three cases (with possible remnants of a fourth) that Hebrew used before the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities—nominative case (indicating a word is the subject of a sentence), accusative case (indicating a word is the object of a verb or preposition), and genitive case (used to indicate a word in the possessive form).10
Indo-European had six verb tenses. Hebrew, on the other hand, contained only two tenses (or aspects), dealing with actions either completed or not completed. Germanic, likewise, reduced its number of tenses to two—past and present. The other tenses in modern Germanic languages have developed out of combinations of these two original tenses.
Verb forms in the two language groups also contain similarities. The Hebrew verb kom, kam, kum, yikom ("to arise, come forth"), for example, compares favorably with modern English come and came, Old English cuman, and German kommen, kam, gekommen ("to come forth, arrive, arise").11
3. Vocabulary. Perhaps the most convincing similarity between Hebrew and Germanic lies in their shared vocabularies. Linguists recognize that about one-third of all Germanic vocabulary is not Indo-European in origin.12 These words can be traced back to the Proto-Germanic period of 700–100 B.C., but not beyond. Significantly, these are the words that compare favorably in both form and meaning with Hebrew vocabulary. Once a formula was developed for comparing Germanic and Hebrew vocabulary, the number of similar words identifiable in both languages quickly reached into the thousands.
According to this formula, words brought into Germanic after 700 B.C. had a tendency to modify their spelling in three ways:
First, in most Germanic dialects, the words changed in spelling according to the sound shift. Hebrew, on the other hand, changed only in pronunciation; spelling remained the same. For example, Hebrew parah ("to bear oneself along swiftly, travel") remained parah when written, but was pronounced [fara] if it was preceded by a closely associated long vowel. With that in mind, it is easy to recognize the same word in Old Norse and Old Frisian (a dialect in the Netherlands): fara ("to travel, move swiftly").
Second, the vowels in the initial syllables were frequently dropped in written Germanic forms because Hebrew words usually carried the accent on the last syllable. Compare Hebrew daraq and English drag. Occasionally, if the initial consonant was weak, the entire syllable dropped out, as in Hebrew walad ("male offspring, son") and English lad, and in Hebrew nafal ("to fall") and English fall.
Third, Hebrew used a tonal accent (a vocal emphasis featuring a tone or sound in part of a word) rather than a stress accent (a vocal emphasis featuring increased volume in speaking part of a word), but this changed to a stress accent in the Germanic dialects. However, the effects of the Hebrew tonal accent are evident in Germanic. The Hebrew tone, which usually appeared in the final syllable, was often represented in written Germanic by one of four tonal letters—l, m, n, or r. Compare Hebrew satat ("to place, found, base, begin") with English start (r represents the Hebrew tone), and Hebrew parak ("to be free, to liberate") with English frank ("free; free speech"—in which p was shifted to f, the unaccented a was deleted, and n was added for the Hebrew tone).
Similarities in Hebrew and English words point to their common roots.
Some Hebrew-English Cognates |
Hebrew |
English |
New Germanic Words from Hebrew Word Roots
Biblical Hebrew contained relatively few root words—originally only a few hundred—but from these roots, words were formed in great variety. Most of these formations were made by exchanging vowels, adding prefixes or suffixes, and doubling consonants according to certain rules. Literally thousands of words similar to these roots, and to the multiple forms that developed out of these roots, appeared in Germanic dialects between 700 and 400 B.C. One example is the Hebrew word dun or don. The root is dwn and is related to the root 'adan ("to rule, to judge, to descend, to be low, area ruled or judged, area of domain"). The proper name Dan ("judge") is related to this root. Out of this root also developed the Hebrew word 'adon ("Lord, Master"). These words remind us of the Anglo-Saxon word adun, out of which the English word down (the noun form means "hill, upland") developed and the area ruled was don, or its modern counterpart town. It is also interesting to note that the Hebrew word 'adon ("Lord") and its root 'adan ("to rule, judge") compare well with Odin and Wodan, two names from different dialects for the highest Germanic god.
The High German Sound Shift
The influence of Hebrew on the Germanic languages does not end with the Germanic Sound Shift of 700–400 B.C. About a thousand years after the first sound shift, the Germanic dialects in northern Italy, Switzerland, Austria, and southern Germany began a second phonetic change involving the same six consonants. Beginning in the south about A.D. 450, this second sound shift, referred to as the High German Sound Shift (since it originated in the highlands of the Alps), spread northward into Switzerland and Austria. By A.D. 750, it had spread to the dialects of southern Germany. This High German dialect continued to grow in popularity (in the sixteenth century Martin Luther used it in his translation of the Bible) until it eventually became the standard form of German.
The major difference between the Germanic Sound Shift of 700–400 B.C. and the High German Sound Shift of A.D. 450–75013 was that [t], which shifted to [th] in the first sound shift, shifted consistently to [s] in the second one. This caused the word water, for example, to be pronounced wasser, and white to be pronounced weiss. This shift of [t] to [s] is an important clue to the source of influence for this second sound shift in southern Germanic territory. It leads us, once again, to the Middle East—but this time to the Aramaic language.
The Aramaic Influence
When Persia conquered Babylon, Cyrus the Great freed the captive Jews and allowed them to return to their homeland in Palestine. However, not all wanted to leave the beautiful city of Babylon to return to their country, which had been destroyed. Some stayed. Many from the tribes of both Judah and Benjamin returned. Those who returned to Palestine found themselves surrounded by Aramaic-speaking peoples, and they soon adopted Aramaic as their everyday language.14
As a consequence, the Jews were speaking Aramaic in A.D. 70 when the Romans overran Jerusalem and sent thousands of Jews fleeing Palestine. During the following years, many of these Aramaic-speaking Jews made their way northward into Europe. The Christianized Jews, especially, sought the refuge of the Italian Alps, and by A.D. 450, they had established a sizable population there. During the following centuries they gradually spread northward into Switzerland, Austria, and Germany.15
Historians have documented these migrations well, but they have failed to recognize the influence of these people's language on the languages they encountered. Aramaic had originally employed a sound shift identical to the Hebrew sound shift, but by 500 B.C. when the Jews learned it, the language had made a small but significant change in its pronunciation. Aramaic began shifting [t] to [s] rather than to [th], as both Hebrew and Aramaic had done previously.16
This is also the characteristic difference between the first Germanic Sound Shift of 700–400 B.C. and the High German Sound Shift of A.D. 450–750.17 For example, in comparing the Hebrew/Aramaic changes with the first and second sound shifts, we note that the Jews at the time of their dispersion pronounced, for example, the Hebrew words bayit ("house") as bayis and gerit (from gerah "roughage, grits") as garis. By comparison, the German word for grit (griot, "groats") made a similar change to grioz, then to griess, during the High German Sound Shift. These changes suggest the influence of Aramaic in the southern Germanic dialects. Additional Hebrew vocabulary was added to the southern German, Austrian, and Swiss dialects during this later period (compare Hebrew pered, "beast of burden," with German Pferd, "horse").
Two Hebraic Sound Shifts
Thus, what have come to be known as the Germanic Sound Shift and the High German Sound Shift appear to have been a Hebraic sound shift and a closely related Aramaic sound shift that influenced the Germanic dialects at two separate periods of history. Research also shows that the linguistic mark of the sound shifts, supported by other linguistic similarities, particularly the vocabulary, can be used as a means of tracing Israelite groups throughout the world. So far, the evidence seems to point to Europe as a major destination, particularly to the Germanic- and Celtic-speaking countries of Scandinavia, Britain and the European mainland.
The Gathering of Israel
The role that Abraham's descendants would play in the course of world history was foreshadowed early in the biblical record. To Abraham the Lord said, "I will make thee exceeding fruitful, and I will make nations of thee, and kings shall come out of thee." (Gen. 17:6.)
The Lord renewed this promise with Isaac (see Gen. 26:4) and again with Jacob, saying that his descendants would "spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed." (Gen. 28:14.)
This spreading would come as Moses foretold: Israel would someday be scattered "among the nations, and … be left few in number among the heathen, whither the Lord shall lead [them]." (Deut. 4:27.) This would be a thorough dispersion. As the Lord said in Amos 9:9, he would "sift the house of Israel among all nations." But he also promised that he would not forget Israel. Eventually, the children of Israel would be gathered "out of the lands, from the east, and from the west, from the north, and from the south." (Ps. 107:3.)
Although Israel would be scattered throughout the world, the countries north of Israel were particularly singled out as lands from which Israel would be gathered. Jeremiah wrote that "the days come, saith the Lord, that it shall no more be said, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt;
"But, The Lord liveth, that brought up the children of Israel from the land of the north, and from all the lands whither he had driven them." (Jer. 16:14–15; see also D&C 110:11; D&C 133:26.)
It is no wonder that Jesus sent his Apostles out into all the world to preach the gospel (see Mark 16:15) or that he said they should go "to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." (Matt. 10:6.)
Israel's peoples have been scattered a long time now. As far as we know, only a portion of Judah retained its identity over the centuries. With the restoration of the gospel through the Prophet Joseph Smith, many members who have received their patriarchal blessings have been identified with the tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh and a sprinkling of other tribes. It is also significant that among the first to accept the gospel in this dispensation were people who lived—or who had ancestors who had lived—in the very countries that received Israelite migrations.
Seeing Their Footsteps
Changes in language provide only one kind of linguistic evidence we can use to identify the dispersion of Israel. Other linguistic evidence can be found in place names and in the names of various ancient peoples who lived north of the Middle East following the captivity of Israel. Many of these people migrated farther north and west into Russia, Scandinavia, Europe, and Britain.
The apocryphal book of 4 Ezra (a continuation of the book of Ezra in the Old Testament) describes how Shalmaneser, King of Assyria, took northern Israel captive. It also indicates, as Isaiah prophesied (see Isa. 10:27), that at least some of the Israelites escaped their captors and fled north.
According to the account in 4 Ezra (referred to in some editions as 2 Esdras), the fleeing captives "entered into Euphrates by the narrow passages of the river" and traveled a year and a half through a region called "Arsareth." (4 Ezra 13:43–45.) The narrow passage could refer to the Dariel Pass, also called the Caucasian Pass, which begins near the headwaters of the Euphrates River and leads north through the Caucasus Mountains. At the turn of the century, Russian archaeologist Daniel Chwolson noted that a stone mountain ridge running alongside this narrow passage bears the inscription Wrate Israila, which he interpreted to mean "the gates of Israel."18
These narrow passages lead through a region called Ararat in Hebrew, and Urartu in Assyrian. Chwolson writes that Arsareth, mentioned in 4 Ezra, was another name for Ararat, a region extending to the northern shores of the Black Sea.19 A river at the northwest corner of the Black Sea was anciently named Sereth (now Siret), possibly preserving part of the name Arsareth. Since 'ar in Hebrew meant "city," it is probable that Arsareth was a city—the city of Sareth—located near the Sereth River northwest of the Black Sea.
A number of other geographical locations in the area of the Black Sea have names that suggest Hebraic origins. For example, the names of the four major rivers that empty into the Black Sea seem to have linguistic ties to the tribal name of Dan. They are the Don (and its tributary the Don-jets), the Dan-jester (now Dnestr), the Danube (or Donau), and the Dan-jeper (now Dnieper). North of the Caspian Sea is a city called Samara (Samaria). There is also a city of Ismail (Ishmael) on the Danube, and a little farther upstream is a city called Isak (Isaac).
Chwolson and others of the Russian Archaeological Society found more than seven hundred Hebraic inscriptions in the area north of the Black Sea. According to Chwolson, one of these inscriptions refers to the Black Sea as the "Sea of Israel."20 On the Crimean Peninsula was a place referred to as the "Valley of Jehoshaphat," a Hebrew name, and another place was called "Israel's Fortress."21 According to the Russian archaeologist Vsevolod Mueller, there was an "Israelitish" synagogue at Kerch (a city on the Crimea) long before the Christian era.22
It is difficult to date these inscriptions, but some of them contain information relating to the fall and captivity of Israel. Others appear to have been written about the time of Christ and even later, indicating that the area north of the Black Sea contained an Israelite population for many centuries. One of these inscriptions mentions three of the tribes of Israel as well as Tiglath-pileser, the first Assyrian king to transport large segments of the population of Israel to Assyria.23 Another inscription mentions King Hoshea, who reigned in Israel during the years of Israel's fall.24
The Russian archaeologists also found mounds, or heaps of earth, dotting the landscape.25 These mounds, stretching across the entire region north of the Black Sea where the Hebraic inscriptions were found, turned out to be elaborate burial chambers, often containing a leader of the people with some of his possessions. Although mound building was not a typical type of burial in the Middle East, "high heaps" or "great heaps" are described as a means of burial in several Old Testament passages. (See Josh. 7:26, Josh. 8:29; 2 Sam. 18:17.) Furthermore, the people of Ephraim were commanded in the Old Testament specifically to build up "high heaps" as "waymarks" as they traveled. (See Jer. 31:21.)
These Black Sea mounds contain not only inscriptions but also drawings, jewelry, and other artifacts indicative of Hebrew origin. The mounds stretch from the Black Sea northward through Russia to the top of the Scandinavian Peninsula, then southward to southern Sweden—where thousands of mounds are found.26 Similar burial mounds are also found in Britain and western Europe, indicating other migrations in westerly and northwesterly directions.
Herodotus identified the first of the mound builders in the Black Sea area as Kimmerioi;27 the Romans referred to them as Cimmerii, from which we have the name Cimmerians. They called themselves Khumri, which refers to "the Dynasty of King Omri." Omri was king of northern Israel about 900 B.C. He founded Samaria and established the capital of Israel there. His mode of government made him popular throughout the Middle East, and northern Israel came to be known by his name, politically, from that time on.
There are other peoples throughout Europe and Asia whose origins trace from this area and whose names seem to have a Hebrew root. Among these are the Galadi (the root word probably comes from the biblical Gilead, the region east of the Jordan River, pronounced Galaad in that region and in Assyria and the Celts (a Germanic pronunciation of Galadi); the Gallii (or Gali, root word probably from the biblical Galilee), also called Gals, Gaels, and Gauls; the Sacites, or Scythians (the word comes from Assyrian captives, Esak-ska and Saka, comparable to the Hebrew Isaac); the Goths, or Getai (the root probably from the biblical Gad, pronounced Gath); the Jutes of Jutland (from the tribe of Judah); and the Parsi (from Hebrew Paras, which means "the dispersed ones"), who settled Paris and whose name in Germanic territory sound-shifted to Frisians.
Terry M. Blodgett is a professor of languages and linguistics at Southern Utah University, where he teaches German language, German literature, German history, and Hebrew.
- This article is based on the author's doctoral dissertation, "Phonological Similarities in Germanic and Hebrew" (University of Utah, 1981) and subsequent studies.
- See John T. Waterman, A History of the German Language (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1966), p. 28; Heinz F. Wendt, ed., Sprachen in Das Fisher Lexikon (Frankfurt am Main: Fisher, 1977), p. 101; and R. Priebsch and Collinson, The German Language (London: Faber, 1966), p. 69; see also pp. 58–70.
- For a detailed description of the Germanic Sound Shift, see Waterman, A History, p. 24; Priebsch and Collinson, The German Language, pp. 58–70; or Wendt, Sprachen, p. 101.
- See W. B. Lockwood, Indo European Philology (London: Hutchinson, 1969), p. 123.
- For a summary of these theories, see Waterman, A History, pp. 28–29, and Priebsch and Collinson, The German Language, p. 68.
- This article follows the professional linguistic convention of placing groups of related sounds in brackets.
- See Waterman, A History, p. 28; Wendt, Sprachen, p. 101; and Priebsch and Collinson, The German Language, p. 69.
- These sounds were not found in the original Indo-European language. They entered Germanic, Armenian, Greek, Celtic, Persian, and, to a lesser extent, several other languages during this same time period.
- Even the same exception to the rules for gemination appeared in both languages. The r (and guttural fricatives) did not double in either Hebrew or in Germanic; instead, the vowel preceding the r lengthened, as in Hebrew berakh ("to bless") and Old English heran ("to hear").
- See William Chomsky, Hebrew: The Eternal Language (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1957), pp. 55–56. William Gesenius makes frequent reference to remnants of other cases in Hebrew. See his works, Geschichte der hebraischen Sprache und Schrift (Hildesheim: Olms, 1973) and Hebrew-Chaldee Lexicon to the Old Testament Scriptures, trans. Samuel Tregeles (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1979).
A Hebrew influence even explains what has been considered an exception to the rules for the Germanic Sound Shift. Whenever one of the six consonants appeared in the middle of a Germanic word, following a consonant, it did not shift. This follows the Hebrew rule, which states that the shift does not occur when the letter is immediately preceded by a consonant. For example, Hebrew harkanah and English harken both contain an unshifted k. - For details, see Blodgett, "Phonological Similarities," pp. 73–76.
- See Lockwood, Indo European Philology, p. 123.
- For details of the differences, see Blodgett, "Phonological Similarities," pp. 58–72.
- See "Hebrew Language," The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: KTAV, 1964), 7:308; also Neh. 13:24.
- See Alexis Muston, Israel of the Alps: A Complete History of the Waldenses and Their Colonies, 2 vols. (New York: AMS Press, 1978).
- See "Aramaic," Encyclopedia Judaica, 16 vols. (Jerusalem: Keter, 1971), 3:262–66.
- See Chomsky, Hebrew, pp. 92, 112. Aramaic also began shifting [d] to [z] rather than to [dh], but Chomsky doesn't mention this, perhaps because the Jews didn't adopt this aspect of the shift as consistently.
- Izvestia o Chozarach i Russkich, as quoted and translated by Joseph C. Littke in Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, Jan. 1934, pp. 7–8.
- Ibid.
- Ibid., p. 8.
- William H. Poole, The Saxon Race (Toronto: Briggs, n.d.), p. 452.
- Materialy dlia isoutchenia Evreiskago-Tatarskago yazyka (St. Petersburg: n.p., 1892), as quoted by Littke, in Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, p. 8.
- Chwolson, Pamiatniki drevnei pismennosti (St. Petersburg: n.p., 1892), as quoted by Littke, in Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine, p. 9.
- Ibid.
- For information regarding these mounds, see Russian Antiquities, Book I (Copenhagen: n.p., 1850); The History of Herodotus, trans. George Rawlinson, in Great Books of the Western World, 54 vols. (Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1952), 6:126; Heinrich Schurtz, "The Scythians, Cimmerians, and Sarmations," The Book of History, 18 vols. (New York: The Grolier Society, 1915–21), 6:2443–50; and Paul B. Du Chaillu, The Viking Age (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889), pp. 216, 299.
- Ibid.
- George Rawlinson, trans., History of Herodotus, in Great Books, 6:126.
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As it turns out, size does matter; larger organizations are likely to have more mature policies in place for social media and customer service. For example, 40 percent of respondents in companies with 1,000 or more contact-center agents said that their social customer service initiatives have been in place for at least two years. In contrast, 53 percent of companies with smaller contact centers said current programs were implemented within the past year to two years.
The reasons behind the move of all companies, regardless of size, to social customer service are still based on the maxim "the customer is always right." The survey shows that 56 percent of respondents said they implemented social customer service due to customer request, compared with 40 percent that put the programs in place to keep up with competitors.
"What's important for every organization to realize is, while social channels are constantly evolving, they are not new anymore," Mitch Lieberman, vice president of market strategy at Sword Ciboodle, said in a statement. "The most successful customer service program will happen for businesses that incorporate social into their overall customer-engagement practices, and really keep pace with the way their customers are communicating with them in all areas."
Small and midsize businesses are still struggling to figure out how social media applications can boost their business, according to the findings of a recent survey from SMB DigitalScape. Only 19.5 percent of small-business Websites have a link to a Facebook page, and even fewer have links to Twitter and LinkedIn, according to the report.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Which smooth, closed surfaces $S \subset \mathbb{R}^3$ have no single geodesic $\gamma$ that fills $S$ densely?
Say a geodesic $\gamma$ "fills $S$ densely" if the closure of the set of points through which $\gamma$ passes equals $S$. Some examples:
- A sphere: every geodesic is a great circle.
- Zoll surfaces, as discussed here: "Surfaces all of whose geodesics are both closed and simple."
- An ellipsoid.
(Image from GeographicLib.)
A torus generally has many geodesics that fill the surface.
(Image by John Oprea)
My assumption is that almost all surfaces have geodesics that fill them. Is this known, under any interpretation of "almost all"? I would also be interested in extending the list of exceptional surfaces beyond {sphere, Zoll, ellipsoid}. Thanks for pointers!
Answers Summary (18Apr2013):
- (Robert Bryant, Mikhail Katz) Any surface of revolution with poles has no dense geodesic. This holds for convex or nonconvex surfaces of revolution.
- (Robert Bryant) There are generalizations of Liouville surfaces (due to Goryachev-Chaplygin and to Dullin-Matveev) that have no dense geodesic.
- (Misha Kapovich) Every surface may be perturbed by gluing on "focusing caps" so that it has dense geodesics.
- (Keith Burns) Guess: There is always a dense geodesic on a closed Riemannian surface of genus $\ge 2$.


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Friday, April 11, 2014
St. Paul, Minn.—Luther Seminary received a $188,540 planning grant from the John Templeton Foundation for a unique project called Science for Youth Ministry. This project will explore how science and faith are discussed with young people in congregations. There will be a special focus on how youth ministries deal with the congruence and conflicts between science and faith.
Given the current dynamics in congregations around this topic, Dr. Andrew Root, associate professor of children, youth and family ministry at Luther Seminary, proposed the research project to uncover major issues and opportunities. As a result of this grant, Root will partner with the Rev. David J. Wood, senior minister at Glencoe Union Church in Glencoe, Ill.; and Tony Jones, author, theologian-in-residence at Solomon's Porch in Minneapolis, lecturer at United Theological Seminary and teacher at Fuller Theological Seminary and St. Cloud State University. Together, they will explore this topic and deliver a white paper about the status of these conversations in early fall 2014. They will also make recommendations regarding subsequent programs for consideration to expand Science for Youth Ministry.
About Luther Seminary
Luther Seminary educates leaders for Christian communities across the country and around the world. It is one of eight seminaries in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). Established in 1869, Luther Seminary is the result of six separate institutions consolidating through a series of mergers, the first in 1917, into a single seminary. Luther Seminary has educated more than one-third of ELCA pastors, in addition to an increasing number of lay professionals and leaders of many global Lutheran and ecumenical churches.
About the John Templeton Foundation
The John Templeton Foundation funds independent research and public engagement, pursuing breakthrough discoveries to expand our current knowledge about the universe, the full potentials of humanity and life's ultimate purpose. The Foundation's motto, "How little we know, how eager to learn," exemplifies its support for open-minded inquiry, commitment to rigorous scientific research and related scholarship, and encouraging civil, informed dialogue among scientists, scholars, theologians and the public at large.


text:
Navy Performance Jersey
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text:
The Change Alliance, of which Cycloop is a member organization, organizes an interesting seminar on MSP in Africa. If you're quick, you can still submit a case study (which is a requirement for participation).
This Johannesburg workshop follows a two-day Inspiring Change event held in Nairobi at the end of the year 2010. A Southern African Trust participant in that event has taken leadership to create this event, April 24-25 in Johannesburg. It is embedded in a strategy for longer term engagement and network development for MSPs in Africa.


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It stands to reason that Almighty God's selection of the Virgin Mary to be the Mother of God was not a random selection. In his wisdom, God selected not from the nobility but from the humble, thoroughly devout, daughter of equally devout parents whose names were Joachim and Anna. Tradition has it that Anna, childless for many years, reached a point in her life when just short of despair she prayed in earnest that God grant her a child with a promise that should her wish be fulfilled she would pledge the child to his holy Temple. It did not matter to Anna that the child granted her by God was a girl and, faithful to her word, she presented her daughter, given the name of Mary, to the holy Temple at the age of three, on the 21st of November. She remained in the house of God for twelve years, emerging at the age of fifteen with a purity and wholesomeness found in no other creature of God. By the time she had been released to her parents, the saintly Mary was not only a flawless maiden but in her twelve years had acquired the lore and religion of the deepest scholars, something usually denied a female child of those days. So much has been written of the Lord's mother that the concern here is for a glimpse into her life as a human being. The Virgin Mary is looked upon by Orthodoxy as "Panagia," which translates into the all-encompassing saint. Greek Orthodox Christians need but one name and that name is "Panagia," carrying the full impact on the Christian faith as no other name can regardless of the language. The beginnings of Christianity were not the scattered remnants that somehow merged into a smattering, of ideologies. By divine intent the great religion of Christ stemmed from a tight circle which spread itself out as the greatest of human experiences.
To begin with, the high priest entrusted with the care of Mary was Zacharias, who in turn was the father of St. John the Baptist, referred to as the prefiguration of the Messiah and the man who was to baptise Jesus Christ. Yet in her teens the Virgin Mary, in a story that cannot be told often enough, was visited by the Archangel Gabriel, sent by the Almighty himself to be told that she, a wisp of a girl, mortal but blessed, was to become the mother of the Son of God. There is every reason to believe that as electrifying as the news was, she received it with both joy and complete serenity. A girl can get excited by being elected "Queen of May" but to be "Queen of the Universe" must have been an anticipation not of excitement but the sublimest of joy, human or otherwise. It follows that both Joachim and Anna, as the grandparents so to speak, of the Son of God, are also venerated as saints of the Church, so much so that they are also known as the "Patron Saints of Pious Education," principally because of the twelve year course of study of religion of their daughter Mary. The Christian can make his own choice of his favourite among the four days of the year which are feast days of the Virgin Mary. These are the Birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary on September 8, the Presentation of the Virgin Mary on November 21, the Annunciation of the Virgin Mary on March 25, and the Dormition of the Virgin Mary on August 15. On the calendar of the Church, all four of these days are of equal importance. The world sees the Virgin Mary much as Michelangelo did when he carved out his famous Ficta in which a youthful looking Mary is holding the lifeless body of her crucified Son. Nowhere is she seen as an old woman, at least not at the age of a woman who is the mother of a thirty-three year old son. Among the Holy Land's most sacred shrines is the one at the base of the Garden of Gethsemane, the site of the agony of Christ. This shrine is dedicated to the Virgin Mary and her parents. After a descent down a cement stairway of about fifty steps, the tomb of Joachim is on the left and on the right of the tomb of his wife Anna. Some fifty steps below this is the empty tomb of the Virgin Mary since, like the Son of God, she ascended into heaven. Stories abound about the Virgin Mary but the truthful one that clings and shall do so forever is that in being the mother of the Son of God, she is the mother of the world. For this reason November 21 is one of Christianity's holiest feast days.


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• vicarious •
Pronunciation: vai-kæ-ri-ês • Hear it!
Part of Speech: Adjective
Meaning: Substitute, surrogate, experienced through sympathy with someone who has the actual experience, as vicarious pain that we experience through sympathy with someone else who actually suffers that pain.
Notes: Today's word is the adjective of vicar, a parish priest of the Church of England, considered a surrogate for a higher power in the Catholic Church. In fact, the Pope is often thought of as the vicar of the Lord. So, the original meaning of vicar was "surrogate". The adverb is vicariously, vicariousness is the noun though the position or residence of a vicar is a vicarage.
In Play: We all enjoy fine cuisine vicariously through the gleams in the eyes of participants on cooking shows. (Well, I do.) But there are other events we can enjoy vicariously: "I got a vicarious thrill listening to Gladys tell about her date with that dreamboat in accounting." Vicarious experiences may be positive or not: "Lowell is so in love with Loretta that when she sneezes he vicariously wipes his nose with a tissue."
Word History: Today's Good Word is a descendant of Latin vicarius "substitute" from vicis "change". This word's root is found in several English words referring to change or replacement, such as vicissitude "change" and the prefix vice- "replacement" as in vice-president. The original Proto-Indo-European root, *weig- "turn, bend," made it to English as both weak and week. Weak was borrowed from Old Norse veikr "pliant, bendable" while week came from Old Germanic *wikon- "a turn". German Wechsel "change" comes from the same origin. (Katy Brezger's weakness is interesting words like this one which she suggested, and she enjoys them directly and vicariously.)
P.S. - Register for the Daily Good Word E-Mail! - You can get our daily Good Word sent directly to you via e-mail in either HTML or Text format. Go to our Registration Page to sign up today!


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Differentiable function
In calculus (a branch of mathematics), a differentiable function of one real variable is a function whose derivative exists at each point in its domain. As a result, the graph of a differentiable function must have a (non-vertical) tangent line at each point in its domain, be relatively smooth, and cannot contain any breaks, bends, or cusps.
More generally, if x0 is a point in the domain of a function f, then f is said to be differentiable at x0 if the derivative f ′(x0) exists. This means that the graph of f has a non-vertical tangent line at the point (x0, f(x0)). The function f may also be called locally linear at x0, as it can be well approximated by a linear function near this point.
Differentiability and continuity
If f is differentiable at a point x0, then f must also be continuous at x0. In particular, any differentiable function must be continuous at every point in its domain. The converse does not hold: a continuous function need not be differentiable. For example, a function with a bend, cusp, or vertical tangent may be continuous, but fails to be differentiable at the location of the anomaly.
Most functions that occur in practice have derivatives at all points or at almost every point. However, a result of Stefan Banach states that the set of functions that have a derivative at some point is a meager set in the space of all continuous functions.[1] Informally, this means that differentiable functions are very atypical among continuous functions. The first known example of a function that is continuous everywhere but differentiable nowhere is the Weierstrass function.
Differentiability classes
A function f is said to be continuously differentiable if the derivative f'(x) exists and is itself a continuous function. Though the derivative of a differentiable function never has a jump discontinuity, it is possible for the derivative to have an essential discontinuity. For example, the function
is differentiable at 0, since
exists. However, for x≠0,
which has no limit as x → 0. Nevertheless, Darboux's theorem implies that the derivative of any function satisfies the conclusion of the intermediate value theorem.
Sometimes continuously differentiable functions are said to be of class C1. A function is of class C2 if the first and second derivative of the function both exist and are continuous. More generally, a function is said to be of class Ck if the first k derivatives f′(x), f″(x), ..., f(k)(x) all exist and are continuous. If derivatives f(n) exist for all positive integers n, the function is smooth or equivalently, of class C∞.
Differentiability in higher dimensions
If all the partial derivatives of a function exist and are continuous in a neighborhood of a point, then the function is differentiable at that point, and it is of class C1.
Formally, a function of several real variables f: Rm → Rn is said to be differentiable at a point x0 if there exists a linear map J: Rm → Rn such that
If a function is differentiable at x0, then all of the partial derivatives exist at x0, in which case the linear map J is given by the Jacobian matrix. A similar formulation of the higher-dimensional derivative is provided by the fundamental increment lemma found in single-variable calculus.
Note that existence of the partial derivatives (or even all of the directional derivatives) does not in general guarantee that a function is differentiable at a point. For example, the function f: R2 → R defined by
is not differentiable at (0, 0), but all of the partial derivatives and directional derivatives exist at this point. For a continuous example, the function
is not differentiable at (0, 0), but again all of the partial derivatives and directional derivatives exist.
Differentiability in complex analysis
In complex analysis, any function that is complex-differentiable in a neighborhood of a point is called holomorphic. Such a function is necessarily infinitely differentiable, and in fact analytic.
Differentiable functions on manifolds
If M is a differentiable manifold, a real or complex-valued function f on M is said to be differentiable at a point p if it is differentiable with respect to some (or any) coordinate chart defined around p. More generally, if M and N are differentiable manifolds, a function f: M → N is said to be differentiable at a point p if it is differentiable with respect to some (or any) coordinate charts defined around p and f(p).
See also
- ↑ Banach, S. (1931). "Über die Baire'sche Kategorie gewisser Funktionenmengen". Studia. Math. 3 (1): 174–179.. Cited by Hewitt, E; Stromberg, K (1963). Real and abstract analysis. Springer-Verlag. Theorem 17.8.


text:
- Home
- Bus and Noctilien Stops
- Puits La Marlière
Bus Stop Puits La Marlière
Puits La Marlière is a bus stop served by bus line 268, located in Villiers-le-Bel.
Next departures at Puits La Marlière
Did you know?
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a bus ticket cost in Paris and Île de France?
To travel by bus, you can use a wide range of tickets, including the Navigo pass. For a single trip, the ticket t+ which allows you to travel by bus costs 2.10 €.
How to pay for your bus trip by SMS?
Don't have a ticket or change? You can take the bus! When you see your bus approaching, send Bus + your line number to the short number 93100. You will then receive an SMS that will serve as your ticket. For example, send Bus29 to 93100 if you take Bus 29. Then, show the SMS ticket to the driver on your phone screen when you board. The SMS ticket is only valid for an immediate trip on the bus without any transfers. The validity period is 1 hour from the time the SMS is sent (the duration is indicated in the SMS you will receive). Cost: 2.50 € excluding the cost of the SMS for phone subscriptions that do not include unlimited SMS.
How much does a Noctilien trip cost?
You can travel on the Noctilien network with Navigo, imagine R, Mobilis, and Paris Visite passes. You can also take Noctiliens with t+ tickets or on-board access tickets. If you use t+ tickets, please note that you need to validate 1 t+ ticket for 2-digit lines and line N135, and validate 2 t+ tickets for all other lines.
Lost items: how does it work?
Have you lost an item? RATP offers you the possibility to report your loss in order to find it.
- Either online, directly on the website ratp.franceobjetstrouves.fr
- Or with an agent from the metro, bus, RER or tramway network.
In both cases, you will be asked to describe the lost item (type, color, brand) and provide your contact details. If the item is found, you will be notified by SMS or email, depending on the contact method you have declared.
Coming soon: you will be able to have the found item delivered to you (paid shipping service at your expense, subject to the eligibility criteria of the item for handling by the carrier Chronopost, in accordance with the general shipping conditions)


text:
Many Americans have saved shockingly little for their retirements, with one study showing that the median savings for households near retirement age is just $17,000. In the coming years, tens of millions of people without traditional pensions will have to get by with just their savings and relatively modest Social Security benefits, provided of course the program remains solvent.
That's why pioneering efforts in California, Illinois, Maryland, Connecticut and several other states to address the dearth of retirement savings have been welcome by many experts. With earlier support from the Obama administration, these states have been laying the groundwork for Secure Choice Retirement Savings Plans that require businesses with five or more employees to either offer their own 401(k) savings accounts or automatically sign up workers for state-run accounts.
Related: 5 Tips for Easing Into Retirement on Your Own Terms
Workers can opt out of the program if they choose, but once in it they must pay roughly 3 percent of their income into tax-preferred retirement accounts managed by the state. While employers may or may not choose to contribute to their workers' accounts, the employee's participation is risk free – with the state guaranteeing a minimum rate of return.
But the ambitious plan has hit a brick wall in Congress, and this may end up denying millions of Americans a path to more substantial retirement savings.
The Senate last week voted 50 to 49 to approve a House-passed measure that would block implementation of the Secure Choice retirement plans and discourage other states from joining them. President Trump supports the move and previously signed a similar piece of legislation preventing cities from creating their own retirement investment programs.
Trump and the Republican-controlled Congress have been busy rolling back or repealing Obama-era regulations that they say adversely affect private businesses, especially Wall Street and the financial sector. Yet at the same time that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-IL) and other GOP leaders are advocating a shift in responsibility for health care and environmental enforcement to the states, Congress and the new president have come down hard against allowing states to fill a huge gap in retirement savings for an aging population.
Related: 4 Times It May Make Sense to Take Social Security Early
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), who led the effort to block California and other states from moving forward with their savings plans, made it clear that the Republicans were concerned about Democratic state governments posing a challenge to private financial institutions that have long dominated the field of retirement savings and investments. A number of Wall Street firms and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce agreed.
"What the [state retirement plans] really add up to is more government at the expense of the private sector and American workers," McConnell said last Wednesday. "They would provide government-run retirement plans with a competitive advantage over private-sector workplace plans."
However, champions of Secure Choice initiatives, including AARP, argue that California and the other states are justified in entering a field of personal finance where the private sector and the federal government have clearly failed – creating what some have described as a "retirement security gap."
Indeed, only one in three workers is using a 401(k) or similar retirement savings account, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, while relatively few Americans today are covered by traditional defined benefit retirement plans that typically offer more substantial long-term benefits.
Related: Aging in Place: 5 Things You Have to Do to Retire in Your Own Home
Moreover, many Americans are uneasy about their financial futures and fear that their Social Security benefits and other savings will be inadequate to sustain them through their retirement years. Just two in five workers say they are confident they will have enough money for a comfortable retirement, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's 2017 retirement confidence survey.
Last week, Democrats complained that McConnell and other Republicans were essentially doing the bidding of the financial industry, according to Bloomberg. "Some of my colleagues are listening to Wall Street lobbyists who want less competition and want to take away retirement savings options from hard-working Americans," declared Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL).
Officials in California and several other states insist they will move ahead with their plans for offering tax-exempt IRAs, regardless of the congressional action, and that if necessary they will fight Congress and the Trump administration in court.
But supporters of the state efforts say the GOP opposition is shortsighted and bad government policy. Congress and the administration are undercutting programs that would substantially reduce the number of older Americans who eventually will have to make greater demands on social safety-net programs to make ends meet because of inadequate retirement savings.
Related: The 3 Best States for Retirement – and the 3 Worst
Sen. Christopher S. Murphy (D-CT) told reporters that, "Nobody had a problem with this except for the big Wall Street companies who invented in their mind that they would be losing business to these state innovations." He added, "This is a terrible, terrible thing we are doing."


text:
The Fan-Fic Plague
Object Class: Ke@#%^ SUPR1337KETER!!!!!!1!!!1!111!!#$%^
Special Containment Procedures
SCP-732 is currently uncont@!#%$ U CANT HES INVINCABLE!!!1!!1!1!111!!@#$wever, if containable, let alone contained, SCP-732 should be kept away from all vital records and should be @#$%3^@4167 Subject must be provided with a 1500 room mansion and a secret lab with which to combat crime and villainy@#$5$%86&*ll compromised records must be destroyed to avoid further contamination of our database.
SCP-732 is a force or entity whic#%^&@Subject is impossibly witty and charming^&*(%@nges our records into fan-fiction ramblin$%^& Subject has psykic powers and can blow peple up with teh blink of an eye#$%^bouts are currently unknow@#$% HES WITH ALL THE KEWL SCPS@#$%@$quiries into the nature of SCP-732 have met with little success #$%TEH HOROR!!!1!!11!! TEH ELdRICH HOROR!!!11!!!!11!!@#hile there is no certain evidence, it is theorized tha#$%^$ Subject likes cult classics %^&*%of our records have been compromised by SCP-732.
ADDENDUM-732-01: A recent breach in SCP-!@#i'manorphanwithnofamilybutlotsofmoneybwahahahaha!@'s containment, which should have warranted the simple and safe procedure of [DATA EXPUNGED], -somehow- led to the deployment of Mobile Task Force Omega-7. SCP-076%^^kicked abel's ass and now he's my bestestestfirend evar!!@# was quite displeased when he found that the "elfin death god" he was sent to contain was not a death god of any sort at all. Quite $$onadatewithSCP-105!%^displeased.. For the sake of our remaining budget, it is strongly advised that more effective methods be found for countering SCP-732's corruption^%$fgsfds!@#.
—Dr. █████


text:
The Brazilian Supreme court awarded US$ 110,000 of moral damages to a daughter who felt emotionally abandoned and felt treated as second class daughter by her father. The court dismissed the father's defense that this emotional abandonment was caused by the mother's aggressive behavior. Also the fact that paternity of the now adult daughter was only officially established recently.
Such legal liability is now in the process of being incorporated into the ECA statute of adolescent and children's rights.
The intent of giving emotional support is noble. Human-Stupidity deplores the overcriminalization and total regulamentation of all aspects of human behavior under the threat of heavy civil liabilities.
Due to the importance of such decisions to Libertarians, the men's rights (and feminist) movement, we translated two newspaper articles in their entirety.
Translation: Superior Tribunal in Brazil orders father to pay compensation for emotional abandonment
(STJ condena pai a indenizar filha por abandono afetivo)
SAO PAULO – The Third Chamber of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) ordered a father to pay R $ 200 thousand [US$ 110 000] to his daughter for "emotional distance". The decision is unprecedented. In 2005, the Fourth Chamber of the Supreme Court had rejected moral damages for emotional distance.
The case judged originates from São Paulo. The author of the case obtained judicial recognition of paternity and filed suit against the father because he had suffered material and emotional neglect during childhood and adolescence. The trial judge dismissed the petition and attributed the father's distance to "aggressive behavior" of her mother towards the father. The woman appealed to the appeals court and said the father was "wealthy and prosperous." The Court of São Paulo (TJSP) reversed the judgment and set the compensation for R$ 415,000.
On appeal to the Supreme Court, the father argued that there was no abandonment, and even if he had done so, there would be illegal to be financially indemnified and the only possible punishment for failing with such obligations fathers would be the loss of family power.
Minister Nancy Andrighi , the of the court's third chamber, however, understood that it is possible to demand compensation for moral damage caused by emotional abandonment by parents. "Love is optional, care is duty," she said in the sentence. For her, there is no reason to treat the damage to family relationships differently from other civil damages.
"Many, based on axioms that focus on the existence of special circumstances in family relationships – feelings and emotions – many deny the possibility to indemnify or compensate for damage arising from failure of parental obligations parents have to fulfill," said the minister. "However, in family law there are no legal restrictions on the application of the rules relating to liability and the consequent duty to indemnify / compensate."
The minister pointed out that moral damages in family relationships may involve subjective questions, such as affection, sorrow or love, making it difficult to identify the elements that traditionally compose the material damage indemnifiable: damage, the authors fault and causation. However, it is understood that parenthood carries objective omotional bonds with legal consequences and constitutional minimum duties to be fulfilled.
"Here we do not talk or discuss love but rather the biological and legal enforcement of caring, which is a legal duty, a consequence of the freedom of people to generate or adopt children," the minister argued.
In the analyzed case, the minister stressed that her daughter has overcome the emotional difficulties causedtreatment as "second class daughter," who was not offered the same conditions for further development that was given to the later born children. Not while presumption of paternity was "evident", nor after the judicial recognition of paternity.
The daughter finally gained employment, founded a family with children and was able to "grow reasonably right." However, the feelings of hurt and sorrow she endured, caused by parental neglect can be characterizing as damage. The amount of compensation set by the lower court TJ-SP, however, was considered high by the supreme STJ, which reduced it to R$ 200,000 [US$ 110 000], a figure that should be inflation adjusted since November 26, 2008, trial date by the court in São Paulo.1
Affectional neglect and abandonment of children may be considered an illegal act
(Abandono afetivo de filhos poderá ser considerado ato ilegal )
BRASILIA – The Committee on Constitution, Justice and Citizenship (CCJ) approved on Wednesday, a change in the Child and Adolescent Statutes (ECA) to enforce financial reparation of damage by a child's father or mother who fails to provide emotional support to children, be it by the living together, or by periodic visits.
The text states that the non-custodial parent of the child or adolescent will be required, by the Civil Code, not only to visit and accompany him or her, but also to watch their financial maintenance and education.
In addition to the duties of financial support, custody and education of minor children, the proposal amends the ECA statutes to also demand of parents the duty of having presence in their children's life and giving material and moral assistance. It is important to stress that this aspect will be considered in the judgments of having given up guardianship and having suspended or given up family rights.
Elementary school principals will have the responsibility to inform the child protection agency in cases of neglect, emotional abuse or emotional abandonment. The current law requires educators to report only cases of physical abuse of students, repeated unjustified absences, high levels of repetition of school years and school dropout.
- Abandono moral – Fundamentos da Responsabilidade Civil
- Experts question the punishment of parents for moral abandonment – as in the law to be votede by the Brazilian senate. (Especialistas questionam punição de pais por abandono moral prevista em projeto que tramita no Senado)
- Pai deve indenizar filho por abandono afetivo


text:
By completing the degree or certificate requirements, the student will acquire proficiency
in traditional and electronic news gathering techniques and in analyzing and evaluating
information. The student will be able to write a variety of publishable stories for
electronic and print journalism and to apply principles of editing and publication
design. Degree and certificate competencies will be assessed regularly by performance
in the college newspaper's print and web editions and its magazine, as well as by
participation in state and national competitions. The major provides career opportunities
in electronic journalism and in newspaper, magazine, advertising, public relations,
and radio/television work.
Kate McLaughlin
Office - Humanities Building, Room 113A
(310) 660-3593 x6090
Stefanie Frith
Office - Humanities Building, Room 113A
(310) 660-3593 x3327


text:
ExxonMobil Finds A Home At Fox News
Written by Jocelyn Fong
Download Fox News' brand new iPad app and you'll notice something curious: there's an ExxonMobil advertisement on nearly every page, sometimes filling the whole screen. Click on it and you can watch a video of a smiling ExxonMobil geologist touting the natural gas boom. As the tech news website Mashable reported, this is because "Exxon is the exclusive launch partner for Fox News' iPad app":
"We decided we wanted to work with one sponsor," [Fox News' Jeremy] Steinberg said, explaining that there are always question marks surrounding a launch, so Fox News wanted a partner comfortable with that. He said Exxon, which is in the midst of a new branding campaign, thought the app was a perfect platform for broadcasting its message.
It makes sense that one of the biggest funders of interest groups that obfuscate the threat posed by global warming would team up with the news outlet that has done more than any other to promote misinformation about climate science.
The partnership further undermines ExxonMobil's 2008 pledge to stop funding groups "whose positions on climate change could divert attention" from the need to develop secure, clean energy. As an internal email revealed last year, it has been the policy of Fox News to question even the basic fact that the planet has warmed in recent decades.
Climate change is not the only issue on which ExxonMobil might find Fox News' coverage agreeable. Last month in the midst of both soaring profits for big oil and attempts by Congressional Democrats to roll back oil companies' tax breaks, ExxonMobil's spin could be heard on Fox News.
With the notable exception of Bill O'Reilly, many on Fox eagerly passed along talking points first outlined by ExxonMobil vice president of public affairs Ken Cohen in a series of blog posts designed to preempt any backlash against Exxon's massive first quarter earnings report.
In an April 27 post, Cohen wrote: "Last year, our total taxes and duties to the U.S. government topped $9.8 billion, which includes an income tax expense of $1.6 billion. Over the past five years, we incurred a total U.S. tax expense of almost $59 billion, which is $18 billion more than we earned in the United States during the same period." (Cohen repeated these figures in posts on April 28 and May 2.)
Cohen also provided the following graphic to underscore that Exxon has paid billions in taxes to the U.S. Treasury, as you'd expect the most profitable company in America to do:
Two days later, Fox Business anchor Lori Rothman appeared on Fox News' Happening Now to discuss Exxon's earnings report. During the segment, she aired ExxonMobil's graphic and stated:
ROTHMAN: Ken Cohen actually made a point to say yeah, ExxonMobil, we're a huge taxpayer in this company. They provided us with this graphic as part of their conference call. Pays more taxes than virtually any other publicly traded company in the United States. Look at that: 59 billion to the United States over the past five years, compared to earnings of over $41 billion from U.S. operation.
That night Lou Dobbs appeared on The O'Reilly Factor and said of ExxonMobil: "They pay $59 billion over the past five years. Their net profits from U.S. operations, $41 billion" (accessed via Nexis).
And on May 10 Ben Ferguson, radio host and frequent Fox guest, said on Fox News' America Live that Obama "should stop making these oil companies into evil companies. I mean, look at the profits the other day of Exxon. They posted $11 billion in profits. They paid $10 billion of those dollars in profits went to taxes." He later added: "we're getting $10 billion out of $11 billion in profit from Exxon."
So what's wrong with Fox News reporting a company's tax bill? Well, nothing, if the numbers are accurate. But the reality is that ExxonMobil's claim to have paid $59 billion in U.S. taxes over the past five years, including $9.8 billion last year, is highly misleading.
Exxon inflates these numbers by including the money they collect from consumers for state and federal gasoline taxes. You pay the tax, but Exxon counts those dollars as part of its own tax burden.
According to the Washington Post, ExxonMobil officials said that of the $9.8 billion in U.S. taxes they say they paid in 2010, $6.2 billion were gas taxes paid by drivers. CNN noted that Exxon used the same fuzzy math for the figures it gave for its U.S. tax bill the first quarter of 2011.
Not only that, but the company has been overstating its tax bill by counting gasoline tax payments for a while, as Robert McIntyre showed in 2006. But rather than letting viewers in on how these figures were calculated, Fox News simply repeated the disingenuous claim that Exxon's tax payments eclipse its earnings.
Fox News personalities also withheld important information from their viewers about ExxonMobil's tax rate. On the May 19 edition of Fox & Friends Eric Bolling argued that expanding oil drilling in the U.S. is good for tax revenue, adding: "Exxon pays 45 percent tax rate. Conoco, 42 percent. The oil companies are the highest taxed on the planet." Martha MacCallum used the same talking point while hosting the May 12 edition of America Live:
MACCALLUM: Lots of anger on display on Capitol Hill today over record profits for oil companies and the subsidies that they get from taxpayers. But we dug a little bit deeper into this story and the numbers. And we found that the three largest oil companies, ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips and Chevron, pay at least 40 percent tax on their profits. So their tax rate is 40 percent.
Bolling and MacCallum suggested that Exxon pays over 40 percent of its revenue in taxes to the United States. But that's not the case. The vast majority of Exxon's earnings come from outside the United States, and the figures provided by Bolling and MacCallum probably refer to the company's worldwide tax rate.
According to CNNMoney, ExxonMobil "does business in some of the mostly highly taxed countries in the world. Want to extract petroleum in Nigeria? Be prepared to fork over up to 85% of your profit in tax payments." BusinessWeek reported that "Russia and Libya charge companies up to 90% of the revenues they collect for extracting oil."
Those figures are bound to skew Exxon's reports on its overall tax rate and don't tell us anything about the tax breaks it gets from American taxpayers, or about how much expanded drilling would help the deficit.
As for what the company contributes to the U.S. Treasury, CNN reported on May 4: "Exxon's average effective U.S. income tax rate over the last six years is about 29%, according to the firm's security filings and an interview with a top Exxon tax lawyer."
In an April 27 post, Exxon's Ken Cohen wrote: "For every gallon of gasoline, diesel or finished products we manufactured and sold in the United States in the last three months of 2010, we earned a little more than 2 cents per gallon. That's not a typo. Two cents." The next day, Cohen added:
During the first three months of this year, for every gallon of gasoline and other products we refined and sold in the United States, we earned about 7 cents. Compare that to the 40 to 60 cents per gallon that went from gasoline consumers to the government (state and federal) in gasoline taxes.
Cohen repeated the claim that "we earned about 7 cents" per gallon in an April 30 post.
On May 12, when five oil executives appeared before the Senate Finance Committee to defend their tax breaks, Fox News correspondent Doug McKelway delivered a report during America's Newsroom which included Cohen's talking point:
MCKELWAY: Oil companies admit that they are making record profits these days when oil is spiking towards $4 a gallon but they say it's not their responsibility. They're not doing it. It's a reflection of supply and demand, increasing thirst for oil worldwide and also because of the commodities market. They say they're not responsible.
HEATHER NAUERT (host): All right, hey Doug, by the way, what do they pay in taxes? A lot of folks are asking that question.
MCKELWAY: An interesting statement came out from ExxonMobil earlier this week in regard to what they pay in taxes. I'll read it to you verbatim, Heather. It says for every gallon of gasoline and other products we refine and sold in the United States, we earned about 7 cents per gallon. That's what Exxon says. Compare that, they say, to the 40 to 60 cents per gallon that went to government, federal and state governments that they received in taxes from every gallon of gasoline. So the difference is clear. The oil companies maintain it is the state and federal government which is addicted to oil.
NAUERT: That's an interesting one. The government's the one making money off of it. Not the companies.
Later that day radio host Jason Lewis appeared on Fox News' America Live and said: "Exxon Mobil made two cents a gallon in the first quarter. Government with an 18.4 cents a gallon tax and state taxes makes anywhere from 40 to 70 cents a gallon. Who's gouging whom?" Host Martha MacCallum replied, "Very interesting."
Radio host Ben Ferguson made a similar claim during his May 10 appearance on Fox's America Live, saying that "their average on a gallon of gas right now is 0.3 cents per dollar you spend they're making cash off it. So about 3 cents on every gallon. They're not killing it."
However, there's good reason to question ExxonMobil's cents per gallon figures. When asked in 2008 why the Energy Information Administration doesn't calculate the average profit earned on a gallon of gas, EIA economist Neal Davis said that trying to determine such a figure would be "heroic at best" and "sadly misinformed ... at worst."
Amy Jaffe, director of the Energy Forum at Rice University's Baker Institute, said via email that "ExxonMobil makes profits in every aspect of their business, from producing oil from the wellhead to manufacturing gasoline." Jaffe added: "I don't know if they mean that they only make 7 cents at the retail pump. Or they only make 7 cents at the rack. Or they only make 7 cents at the refinery processing manufacturing operation. Or they only make 7 cents on all three together."
On May 27 FactCheck.org examined ExxonMobil's claim and concluded that "the 7-cents-per-gallon figure grossly underestimates the industry's earnings. It includes only earnings from the sale of gasoline and not earnings on producing and selling crude oil. There are no independent figures on how much oil companies earn on a gallon of gasoline." From the post:
We called ExxonMobil and asked how Cohen arrived at his figure. Spokeswoman Kristen Hellmer said it was determined by dividing ExxonMobil's "downstream earnings ($694 million) by the number of gallons of gasoline and other products refined and sold during the quarter in the U.S. (9,355 million gallons). The result is 7.4 cents per gallon." Downstream earnings are what the company earns from refining crude oil into gasoline and other petroleum products and then selling it. But that ignores "upstream earnings," which is how much Exxon earns in producing and selling crude oil. And the cost of oil exceeded $100 a barrel in the first quarter of 2011.
Oil industry analyst [Tom] Kloza called the 7-cents-per-gallon figure "disingenuous," because it ignores high earnings from oil production. "Bringing crude oil to market has been incredibly profitable," Kloza said. "It is disingenuous to say in the downstream we are making only this much."
ExxonMobil reported that its upstream earnings were $8.7 billion in the first quarter -- up $2.9 billion, or 49 percent, compared with a year ago. As of August 2010, it was the third largest oil refiner in the U.S.
Fox News is a network that can often be counted on not to scrutinize misleading statistics and talking points when doing so would contradict its broader political aims. Which means that on energy and environmental policy, Fox News and ExxonMobil are natural allies.


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Title & Description
Title & Description
Gift Basket
/Entertainment and Arts/Fine Art
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Gift Basket business. Create crafty and beautiful gifts with a gift basket business.
Business Overview
If you're the type who goes nuts at holidays and birthdays, choosing oh-so-special gifts and then dressing them up in creative packages, you'll get all wrapped up in a gift basket business. You can give gifts all year long and get paid for doing it! This is one of the hottest businesses going, with recent annual sales of $800 million.
If you set your creativity on high and develop your own special niche, you can be very successful.
Gift basket entrepreneurs buy gifts and tuck them into baskets, decorative tins, boxes or bags for their customers to give to that certain someone. Each basket of goodies is designed around a theme, which can be anything from romance to travel to new baby to new home to just about anything you can dream up. There are even divorce baskets! The gift basket business's advantages are that you can start part time, your startup costs are relatively low, and if you're a creative person who likes conjuring up unique themes and packaging and putting them all together, it's a whole lot of fun. Plus, the business is gratifying -- everybody's delighted to receive a fancy basket full of gifts.
A gift basket can be elegant, whimsical or sporty, but make sure it looks smart -- you can't just toss in a hodgepodge of objects and stick on a bow. You'll need a flair for the creative and the design ability to pull it all together into an attractive package. You'll also need to be a savvy marketer who can sell those unique baskets to a variety of clients and customers.
The Market
The quintessential consumer gift-basket customer is the middle-to upper-income female baby boomer, but you can sell to just about anybody. Be sure to tie up business accounts. These will keep your cash flow going during slower retail seasons and can be a terrific source of repeat sales. Wrap up travel and real estate agents, innkeepers, apartment complexes, car and boat salespeople, public relations firms, or any other corporate clients who'll want to thank, wow or woo their own customers. And don't forget clubs and organizations -- they're always throwing dinners, teas, parties and assorted awards banquets for which gifts are a necessary ingredient.
You can attract these clients and customers with creative marketing. Send brochures to businesses and organizations, then follow up by setting appointments to show your baskets or a professional portfolio of your designs. To reap retail customers, place ads in local newspapers, host home parties à la Tupperware and exhibit at crafts fairs. Send press releases to local and national publications, offer yourself as a guest on a local radio chat show, and donate a few baskets to other businesses' grand openings or for fund-raisers in return for free publicity.
Needed Equipment
In most states, you'll need a liquor license to add that swanky bottle of champagne or fine wine, and you'll want a resale license so you can buy gifts and supplies at wholesale prices. You'll also want a shrink-wrap machine (or use a heavy-duty hair dryer or paint peeler); that indispensable crafter's tool, the hot glue gun; and a work space large enough for you to spread out your materials and assemble your baskets. (Keep in mind that a business client may order 100 or more baskets at a time.)
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The Magnetic Poles of Uranus
Uranus has a strange magnetic field. The magnetic poles of Uranus are not at all close to the geographic poles of Uranus.
The main magnetic field of Uranus is tilted 59° away from the planet's spin axis. Earth's magnetic field is tilted, too... but only by 11°. The magnetic field of Uranus is shifted, too. It doesn't quite go through the center of the planet.
The magnetic field of Earth is pretty much like the magnetic field around a bar magnet. It has a North Pole and a South Pole. It is called a dipole ("two poles") field. The magnetic field of Uranus is more complicated. It has a dipole part... but it also has a part with four poles. With all of these poles and its crazy tilt, the magnetic field on Uranus changes a lot from place to place. At some places on Uranus the magnetic field is only 1/3rd as strong as Earth's field. In other places the field on Uranus is almost four times as strong as Earth's!
Why is the Uranian magnetic field so odd? Scientists think that electrical currents in a salty ocean inside Uranus may create its magnetic field. That ocean isn't at the core of Uranus. Most planets make their magnetic field at their core. Maybe that's why the field around Uranus is so odd. Neptune is the other planet most like Uranus. Neptune has a strange magnetic field, too.
Uranus has a magnetosphere that is pretty normal compared to other planets. It also has aurora... like the Southern and Northern Lights on Earth.


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Junk Removal Services Include
* Trash Removal
* Garbage Removal
* Furniture Removal
* Basement Cleanout and Hauling
* Furniture Relocation
* Moving Services
* Appliance Removal (no matter how big!)
* Mattress and Bedframe Removal
* Equipment Removal
* Office Cleanout
* Large Equipment Removal
* Cleanup post-storm
* (Any item can be removed as long as it is not considered to be a hazardous material)
The Difference between a Dumpster and a Junk Removal Company
You might be confused as to what the difference between a dumpster rental and a junk removal company may be. They both seem very similar and many people don't know which to decide on. Here we have all the facts about both dumpsters and junk removal companies so you can determine what you need.
First of all, a dumpster rental is used in more permanent settings, such as an ongoing construction site. The dumpster is delivered and placed in the driveway or ground of a site where there is a continuous influx of disposed materials. If you are planning a major cleanout of your house over a long period of time, then a dumpster is recommended. It is a more permanent way to get rid of waste. Once your rental time is up, your dumpster hauler will come and pick up the container for you along with all of your waste.
Next, a junk removal company is a temporary way to get rid of debris. Rather than having a permanent fixture in your driveway or at your site, a junk hauling company will come in and quickly and swiftly get all of your debris and clutter from your home or office. Junk hauling is for fast paced work, such as a major home cleanout or spring cleaning day. You will call and schedule a date and time for a team of workers to come to your site or home. You will not have to load the truck yourself like you would with a dumpster rental; rather your team of workers will do all of the work for you. This is a great idea if you have a room with clutter in your home that you would like to get rid of and don't have the time or means to do it yourself. It also is a great idea if you have large pieces of furniture that you aren't able to lift or get out of your home by yourself. To save yourself any injury or frustration, these junk removal specialists have the tools to remove any item from your house by taking them apart or using ramps to move them.
Overall, dumpster rentals are used in more permanent cleanouts and construction sites. These are great because they can be rented for weeks or months at a time. Junk removal companies are used for the opposite type of waste removal, a quick disposal of many goods that get taken away all in one day. Hopefully with this information you can go forward knowing what rental is necessary for your job or home.
Donations and Junk Removal
You may realize that a good majority of what you are disposing of may be in great condition, you just no longer have a need for it anymore. While you might already be planning on donating some of your goods, you might not realize that junk removal companies will actually do this for you without you even realizing it.
Once your junk removal team leaves your home, they divide up your goods based on the quality, material and item. They will be recycled, donated, or taken to the local landfill.
Donations are important because they take items that are in good condition are given to charities and donation centers for those in need. While you might not want your old furniture or clothes anymore, you might not even think to find a donation center. However, these junk removal teams will simply do the work for you. Not only are they cleaning out your home and giving you a better living space, but they are taking what is your junk, and giving it a second home with those who truly need it. It is such a great process because most people don't even think to donate, and this way, you don't even have to put in any extra effort.


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24.99 € / Month
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The paiment will be processed by INTERACHAT the secured credit card processor we used on our network : MMM100. You will receive your login and password a few seconds after your paiement has been accepted. Those info will allow you to access the members area of this website, and all the other sites of our network


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Optus Television is the cable television division of Australian telecommunications company Optus.
Its immediate predecessor was Optus Vision, a joint venture between, Optus and Continental Cablevision with small shareholdings by media companies Publishing and Broadcasting Limited and Seven Network. The Optus Vision joint venture was founded to handle residential cable television and local telephony, while its parent concentrated on corporate, long-distance, satellite and interstate communications. Optus Vision used a hybrid fibre coaxial cable network to connect homes to its network. Optus Vision added broadband cable internet access to its network.
Optus Vision used the Optus telecommunications licence as authority to build a cable network. The Optus Vision network was rolled out in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The major competitor to Optus Vision was Foxtel, a 50/50 joint venture between Telstra and News Corporation. These competed heavily in the metropolitan areas.
Optus Vision negotiated exclusive access to AFL (Aussie Rules) football Rugby League, and other sports. It also had exclusive access to Disney Channel, ESPN and MTV Australia though it always lacked the general entertainment channels that Foxtel had. Optus Vision commenced its Cable TV service in September 1995, one month before Foxtel, delivering a limited number of channels to a small number of subscribers, all of whom were connected via its Blacktown Exchange.
From 1995 to 1997, the Super League War waged between the two consortia over lucrative rugby league rights. In March 1997, Optus bought out the other shareholders in exchange for equity in itself, to float.
In 2002 Optus let go of some of its exclusive content contracts, replacing them with non-exclusive ones. MTV Australia, Disney Channel ESPN and the premium Movie Network channels all became available on Foxtel as soon as they were able.
In 2009 Optus Television stopped offering its service to new subscribers, with service still available to existing subscribers.
From February 2011 Optus were again offering Optus TV featuring Foxtel including IQ2 services.
Satellite Broadcasting[edit]
Optus, along with Austar had a joint venture in the use of Satellite broadcasting for the delivery of Subscription Television. Originally, Foxtel had not previously offered a Satellite service, until purchasing the satellite subscribers from Australis Media within their service area. Until 2004, Foxtel was a customer of the Austar/Optus joint venture.
Optus utilised this joint venture to initially trial and subsequently offer a basic satellite service, named VIP. The service was very select with not many being able to access the service. It was also offered to Norfolk Island and some smart cards were enabled for some residents (who had the required satellite receiving equipment) to take part in a trial of the service. The ability to offer the service came about due to Optus offering a large number of channels to East Coast Television (now a part of Austar). After Optus axed the "VIP" Service, it also sold its share in the joint venture to Austar.
In 2004, the roles reversed and Austar became the customer to Foxtel for satellite delivery.
Sports Programming[edit]
Until 2002, Optus did not offer the Fox Sports sporting channels on their service as Foxtel and Austar did, instead offering channels from Sportsvision, (later C7 Sport) and ESPN.
During the Super League/ARL war, the Optus sports channels had the rights to the ARL competition and the Super League rights were held by Fox Sports.
Seven bought Sportsvision, which became Optus and Austar exclusive C7 Sport and progressively lost sporting rights to Fox Sports. During that time Foxtel granted Optus an "NRL Channel", screening all of the NRL matches that had previously been shown exclusively on the Foxtel platform.
C7 Sport for some time had attempted to access the Foxtel platform for their service – however Foxtel were hesitant to accede to the request, with one exception being the 2000 Sydney Olympics, where C7 offered two extra channels dedicated to Olympics coverage.
In March 2002, the commencement of the new AFL broadcasting deal with Foxtel led Optus and Austar to drop C7 Sport from their services, leading to the demise of the channel. Optus replaced the C7 channels with an Optus rebadged version of Fox Sports. Optus dropped the "Optus Sports" name in October 2002.
The dropping of the C7 service led to Optus being a party in the unsuccessful legal action taken by the Seven Network over the demise of the C7 Sport service.
For more details on the demise of C7 and the resulting litigation, see, a group of sports channels that were established to televise the Premier League.
Subscriber Numbers[edit]
For some time, Optus has not explicitly released subscriber numbers for their Optus Television service, however combining them with other services offered under the division of which Optus Television is a part.
Since December 2002, subscriber numbers have dropped considerably to almost half of the 241, 000 reported. Since that time, Optus has repositioned its television service to being a major component of bundled services, rather than a service by itself. By August 2010 only 96, 000 subscribers remained.
Optus iTV Trials[edit]
During 2002–03, Optus trialled interactive digital television over part of its Sydney network. The service was being built from 2000. This service was known as Optus iTV. The service was unique to Optus and had a good deal of positive consumer feedback. The iTV service utilised the Liberate platform instead of OpenTV, as used by Foxtel Digital. The trials were cancelled by Optus after the Content Supply Agreement with Foxtel was reached. One byproduct of the new agreement was the re-engineering of the Optus iTV broadcast centre in Macquarie Park to become the new broadcast centre for Foxtel.
A notable difference between Optus iTV and Foxtel Digital was that the Optus system used the same HFC cable network both for delivery and for the return path, meaning no additional hardware or service was required for this return path. By contrast, the Foxtel Digital system at the time relied on a telephone connection for the return path. The advantage of this system is that it is platform neutral, meaning that the same telephone-based return path can be used for both cable and satellite installations.
The Optus iTV system also allowed near video on demand (nvod) not true video on demand. Foxtel Digital now provides Near Video on Demand as well. Featured content broadcast on multiple channels with staggered start times available at frequent intervals. Some new Foxtel Services offer a "Video on Demand" ability for limited product, various transmission paths offer a broader VOD version.
Optus TV featuring Foxtel[edit]
Former Optus Television logoAfter signing up to the Content Supply Agreement with Foxtel, Optus Television changed their channel line up to reflect the offerings from Foxtel. Optus were able to have a number of differences between their offering and the Foxtel offering, so that Optus could meet some contractual obligations they had, as well as satisfying a number of requirements placed on the organisation by the ACCC.
A number of channels that had previously been unique to Optus (in comparison with Foxtel) such as the Odyssey Channel were removed from the Optus line-up, as they competed with channels that Foxtel offered. Other channels crossed from Optus to the Foxtel line-up such as the Ovation Channel. Optus was required to have a number of channels that were unique to their service, though the flagged channels are now available on both platforms without any change in regulation nor penalty.